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Sunday, February 9, 2014

Tyranid Battle Report!

Over the weekend I finally managed to get my first game in
with the new Tyranid Codex. I couldn’t really decide which type of list I
wanted so I figured I would just throw down all my big bugs and see how it
went. I played against my friend Jason who has an amazing look Nurgle Army. We
have had a few battles in the past and it has always been a tight game and I
figured this would be more of that.

We rolled up the Crusade for our mission (D3+2 objectives)
with the first table set up (12” deployment). After taking turns placing the
objectives I noticed there was a cluster of 3 objectives to my left so I
figured that is where I was going to put the base of my army. My game plan was
to have my walking Hive Tyrant escort my Tervigon (who has catalyst) and all
the gants on that side of the board to help cover those 3 objectives while I
use literally everything else in my army to distract Jason and disrupt his
forces, hopefully pulling him away from those objectives. He set up with all
his fast units on the flanks as well as his soul grinder helping book end his
army. He placed all his PBs and Nurglings in the middle of the board facing the
handful of objectives he was targeting. He used his Nurglings as a screen to
help give his PBs a 3+ cover save due to shrouded. He also put his two heralds
into the PBs to make sure they had FNP.In the very center of all of that was Ku’Gath for support who I later
found out is a freaking MONSTER, puts almost everything in my army to shame in
hand to hand.

Turn 1

I ended up stealing the initiative, so I went about moving
all my models into place and getting as many of my spells up as I could. I cast
catalyst on the large Termagant unit and Onslaught on both FMCs just in case I
needed that extra bit of movement.Once
I got to my shooting phase I started looking at Jason’s army and trying to
figure out where the best place to put my Str 6 Devourer shots. I figured it
would be a waste on the PBs as they would have shrouded and FNP and the Drones
have 3 wounds each and I would only be wounding on 3’s. Most of his Nurglings
were out in the open though and are only T3 so my Devourers will Instant Death
them all, so that is what I did. The first round of shooting killed 6 full
bases. The Harpy shot his venom cannon and did virtually nothing as venom
cannons are maybe the worst heavy weapon in the game (still).

Jason’s turn mostly consisted of moving his forces into
position. After his initial move I realized I had made a bit of a mistake in
how I positioned my army. Basically I moved my Termagants a little bit too far
forward which left them open to a charge from the Beasts of Nurgle. He needed
to roll a “10” to charge my Termagants and naturally did it on the very first
roll. In the shooting phase he rolled Wrath of Khorne which ended up putting
two wounds on my Tervigon and then he rolled a “6” for the number of str 6 hits
on my Harpy. He ended up wounding almost all of them and I made all but 2
saves. In total on 8 units he ended up roll a “6” on three of them and never
rolled less than a “5” for the number of hits lol. I could already see where
this game was headed (or at least I thought). He rolled up the attacks for the
Beasts of Nurgle and they ended up getting 17 attacks between the 3 of them
doing a whole bunch of damage to the gant squad. Because my squad was spread
out so far I got barely any attacks back in return. Fearless though saved my
bacon as everyone just consolidated inwards.

Turn 2

One of the main differences I noticed between the 6th
ed Codex and the 5th ed Codex
is how they removed virtually all the synergy between the Tervigon and the
Termagants which is a real shame. So, instead of getting 30ish poison attacks
on the Beasts of Nurgle I ended up going with my standard str 3 which means I
won’t be doing a whole lot of damage. I realized that if I just left the Beasts
to do their own thing they would just chew through that squad so I had to deal
with them. I moved my Tyrant over to help deal with that threat and cast
Paroxysm on the Beasts of Nurgle reducing them to WS 1 to help limit the damage
they do. I rolled for reserves and only 1 of my 2 Mawlocs came in which was the
second major changed I noticed (again, not for the better). For some stupid
reason you can’t burrow turn 1 anymore so if you want them to come in on the
second turn you have to put them into reserve which makes them way less
reliable. With the Mawloc that came in I ended up scattering off my intended
target but Jason just had so many plague bearers it still hit something. I
didn’t end up killing everything under the template but I did do enough to make
sure I could place him. I continued to murder his Nurglings with my Flyrant
which was just doing whatever he wanted thanks to Jason having no AA. The Harpy
dropped a spore mine, did virtually no damage and the venom cannon hit, doing
virtually no damage. My Trygon got a charge on the second Nurgling Squad doing
a bit of damage (all his attacks IDs them) which brings up the 3 major change.
While the Tyrgon is still *fine* you really do notice the removal of re-rolls
on all his attacks as it does greatly affect his damage output. The Tyrant and
co. almost completely killed the Beasts of Nurgle after he lost combat and
rolled on his instability check.

Jason was now faced with a Trygon and Mawloc right in the
middle of his core army with a few of his units reduced to WS 1. Ku’Gath was
still mobile though and Jason decided it was time to put an end to the
irritating Mawloc. Ku’Gath tried to cast miasma of pestilence and shadow in the
warp cancelled that out (made him LD 6, he rolled a 9 for his spell). He moved
in with 7 attacks all hitting on 3s and wounding on 4s but only managed 2
wounds on the Mawloc. The Mawloc then hit and run getting ready to burrow next
turn. The PBs on the right side joined forces with the Nurglings to assault the
Trygon which Jason didn’t realize was a massive mistake on his end. Taking my
cue from 5th ed fearless units I decided to attack the Nurglings as
each unsaved wound would count towards -4 to his instability check. After
combat was finished he had to make 2 checks at -6. Each time he rolled high
then with Ku’Gath re-rolled it to a “3” so he only took one wound on each unit
and came dangerously close to restoring the Nurgling squad that only had one
base left to 9 bases.The Warlord Tyrant
finished off the last of the Beasts in CC and moved towards the Defilier that
had moved up to try to kill the Venomthrope (naturally rolled a 1 to wound but
killed a whole slew of gants instead). He lastly moved the Drones around to put
them in a spot to charge the following turn. Jason managed to blow up one of
his own heralds on the Warp Storm table which made me happy.

Turn 3

My 2nd Mawloc still hasn’t appeared (rolled a 1
for reserves…again) and my first Mawloc burrowed. I cast Paroxysm on both PB
squads to limit their effectiveness in CC. I shot with both the Harpy and the
Tyrant at the second PB squad not doing much damage. I moved all my free Gant
units as well as my Tervigon to capture the 3 objectives that are close to me.
I charged the Soul Grinder with the Tyrant and his guard and managed to wreck
the Soul Grinder before he was able to fight back. The Trygon and PBs were
locked in combat with neither side accomplishing much. At this point in the
game I had things fairly contained for Jason’s troops. Sadly at this point in
the game we had to call it as families were calling.

After looking at what was left and the fact that both
Mawlocs were coming up next turn and I hadn’t lost anything we were both pretty
confident that the Tyranids would have won the gameg. Ku’Gath was a real concern having T7, 7 wounds
and an invlun save plus being an absolute monster in CC but we still figured he
couldn’t kill my entire army with just him.

Final Thoughts

The Good: Despite all the doom and gloom there are some
really decent things with the new codex. I really liked the new powers.
Paroxysm is a fantastic power as is Catalyst. Both were used all game and
really helped out. To be fair I was playing against a CC army that was
primarily WS 3 so it was pretty easy to make them WS1, they also had no
shooting which helped my cause as well. The pricing on a lot of things was also
really nice. I added up everything and compared them to a list made with the 5th
edition book and I saved enough points to buy the Harpy. I also really think
foot slogging Tyrants are a lot more viable then one would give them credit
for. Mine in 3 turns managed to kill 3 beasts of Nurgle and a Soul Grinder and
was about to start in a PB squad before the game ended. He was fairly well
priced and it was great having two psychic powers. I really liked the set up I
had with the Gants and the one Venomthrope. I feel that the Tyrant with his guard
is big enough to actually screen a lone Venomthrope to help keep the shrouded
going. The Flyrant was decent but I don’t think that was a very good test of
his (or the Harpies) abilities since there was no AA. I bet anything once you
have something that can shoot them their effectiveness goes way down.

The Bad: Mawlocs. I know people will think I am high but
here me out. For me I have never taken a Mawloc for the actual damage it does
the turn it comes up. All I ever used it for (to incredibly good effect) was a
disruption/distraction unit. While the damage IS nice and it means if it does
hit it will typically do something, I just hate how unreliable it is and how
limited its choices are for targets (living, weaker, single wound units
basically). Not being able to burrow on turn 1 is a huge blow to this unit
especially since they removed virtually all our methods of altering reserve
rolls. This game I only had one Mawloc see the field. Also, if Jason had made
just ONE more save my Mawloc would have misshaped. The old Codex would have had
BOTH Mawlocs in his deployment zone and both would have just bunched everything
together for other unit’s blast weapons. I think for 140pts he is still worth
the points though as he has the cheapest Points to Wounds ratio for any
Monstrous Creature in the codex. I just think he is not as good as people are
making him out to be. I also really
noticed the loss of all Synergy between the Gants and the Tervigon as well as
the Synergy of the Venomthrope to units outside of shooting. I know not a lot of people liked the
Venomthrope in the last book but universally I thought it was actually better
in the old codex. While shrouded is a significant upgrade to its aura the loss
of defensive grenades and units taking dangerous terrain tests when assaulting friendly
units within its aura is very noticeable. I also think that none of the issues
with this unit were actually addressed and I really don’t feel it’s any more
viable then it was before. The fact that it’s a small unit (max of 3 models)
that only are T4 and 2 wounds with virtually no save make them virtually
effortless for many armies to remove making them almost a waste of points to
take especially since they provide such a huge buff.

I was really hoping to be surprised by some stuff, like to
see certain things make sense once you get it on the battle field. Sadly I
didn’t notice any of this. It really does feel like it’s just playing the 5th
ed codex with a bunch of special rules missing and the majority of the options have
gotten weaker. I really don’t think there is anything “hidden” or that we are “missing”
that will be revealed with some play testing like people had with the Eldar. I
think this book is as shallow and weak as people first think when looking at
it. This book will see about as much diversity in lists that people take as the
last book I think, except instead of seeing Tervigon Spam it will be all about
dual flying hive tyrants, a venomthrope, tervigon w/ 30 gants and probably 2
crones. I have literally never seen a codex/rule book for ANY game system that failed
to address the major failings/issues of the previous book LESS than this one has,
which is incredibly disappointing. I mean…NO changes to the Pyrovore? How in God’s
name can that happen lol? Regardless though I am going to keep plugging away
using the book as I love my army too much to have it sit on the shelf. What
will happen though is past the Tyrant Guard boxed set I purchased with the codex
before I read the rules I will probably avoid buying anything for this army and
just focus on finishing what I have.

1 comment:

As for the mawloc, you actually want to mishap. One of the other nid players always tries to clip a vehicle when he targets, so he will. Because it is only a 1/6 chance you lose it. The rest you either get placed somewhere and reburrow, or you go back into reserves.

That is what makes the mawloc have such huge potential, because when it comes down to it, it cannot be countered. You could go the entire game just blasting away, and mishapping back into reserves every turn and never actually place the mawloc on the table to get shot.

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